| Home |
| Search |
| Today's Posts |
 |
|
Menu
| London Transport (uk.transport.london) Discussion of all forms of transport in London. |
| Reply |
|
|
LinkBack | Thread Tools | Display Modes |
|
|
| London Transport (uk.transport.london) Discussion of all forms of transport in London. |
| Reply |
|
|
LinkBack | Thread Tools | Display Modes |
|
|
|
#1
January 23rd 05, 10:51 PM
posted to uk.transport.london
|
|||
|
|||
Missing men (was London population not increasing)
In article ,
Martin Underwood wrote: "Michael Bell" wrote in message ... In article , Nick Cooper wrote: Thank you for your last post. Very informative. You seem to be well up on population and census matters. Let me ask you another. If you have a good system of registering births and deaths, then strictly speaking, you don't need a census. All the births are registered, and so are the deaths, with the year of birth of the deceased. So your number in each age group is simply the number born in that period less the number died. Every time a census is done, the count got is compared to the number calculated as above, and up to the 1991 census, the comparison was reasonable. But in the 1991 census, there was a shortfall of 700 000, mostly men, and almost all 16 - 32 years old. The official explanation was that they were in hiding from the poll tax, then only recently abolished. But even then, there was a school of thought which said that this was cowardice and we should face up to the fact that they had gone abroad. The same was repeated in the 2001 census, only now the numbers have gone up, because this phenonomenon has been going on longer, and it now extends to older people. What can the explanation be? The can't be dead - somebody would have noticed over a million bodies. Some local authorities claim that it is multiple occupation in student houses - but didn't this happen before and some of these men are now a bit old for that kind of thing. Or, as some claim, have they gone abroad? What is the current thinking on this? What an interesting question. I wonder what could have happened since 1991 that could explain such a discrepancy that wasn't there in previous censuses. The poll tax explanation could explain the 1991 shortfall but what incentive would there be in 2001 to avoid the census? I presume the comparisons are made between births/deaths in the UK and people in the census who say they were born in the UK, so as to avoid counting immigrants. So on the face of it, it's a fair comparison. I've forgotten: how much information is requested in the modern census? I answered all the questions on mine without really remembering what they were asking. Do they ask for place of origin? Do they ask for national insurance number? For that matter, are NI numbers allocated at birth and recorded on the birth certificate, or are they only allocated when people start working? In theory, given access to all the information (Data Protection Act permitting!) it would be possible to correlate names in the birth/death registers against names in the census: you may not know *which* John Smiths are missing, but you can identify how many you'd expect for each year of birth, subtracting those of each year of birth who have died (birth year=death year - age at death) and correlate that against name and age on census. When people emigrate (if that is the explanation for the shortfall) is there any official record of that fact? If the number of UK citizens who emigrated correlates with the shortfall, that looks a plausible explanation. I find it difficult to imagine hiding from official lists because I'm so bloody honest that I regard it as my duty to stand up and be counted and recorded for posterity - and genealogists! But I'm well aware that there are a lot of people who don't think this way. -- |
| Reply |
| Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
| Display Modes | |
|
|
Similar Threads
|
||||
| Thread | Forum | |||
| Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone | London Transport | |||
| Increasing tube capacity Boris Johnson style | London Transport | |||
| [OT] High-resolution population density data for London? | London Transport | |||
| Commons debate on increasing Crossrail scope | London Transport News | |||
| Ken says yes to Crystal Palace tram extension | London Transport | |||
Hybrid Mode
